I was up for a movie recently. The family was out of town, I had nothing much better to do, and it seemed like a perfect chance to take in one of those big, fat summer blockbusters that serve no better purpose than to kill brain cells and promote hearing loss.

I'd already seen "Mission: Impossible III," and neither "The Da Vinci Code" nor "X-Men: The Last Stand" had opened. So a check of the movie listings left me with pretty much one choice -- "Poseidon," the big-budget remake of "The Poseidon Adventure."

Trouble was, the reviews had been deadly. Lots of eye candy, sure, but uninteresting, one-dimensional characters caught up in unsurprising situations. There was no way I was going to pay $10 (or thereabouts) for the experience.

But what if, because of all the dreadful word of mouth that surrounded "Poseidon," movie theaters were to charge, say, only $5 per showing? Would that have gotten me to go?

In all honesty, yes. I'd pay $5 for a sucky film that still has state-of-the-art special effects and some stars I sort of like and revisits one of the all-time great disaster movies (right up there with "Towering Inferno"). There are worse ways you could spend a couple of hours.

The question, therefore, is this: With movie theaters taking ever more heat from home-theater systems and DVDs and cable channels like HBO, why not introduce a sliding scale that makes ticket prices more attractive for films that aren't exactly the next "Lord of the Rings"?

In other words, theater owners themselves are increasingly aware that the movies they show are often unworthy of the hefty ticket prices they charge. And they know they have to do something to address the problem.

However, Macdowell said it's unclear how theater owners could introduce a sliding scale for ticket prices without the cooperation of movie studios, which can lay claim to as much as 90 percent of box office revenue from heavyweights like "X-Men," which raked in about $123 million last weekend.

"A lot of our flexibility on pricing is limited by the studios," he said.

And that just makes the notion of a sliding scale all the more improbable, observed Barak Orbach, a law professor at the University of Arizona who focuses on regulation in general and the pricing of movie tickets in particular.

He pointed out that even if theater owners and studios could come to terms on a sliding scale, this might end up causing moviegoers to see fewer films each year, not more.

"If the price is low, many people will think it must be a very bad movie and will not go," Orbach said. "If the movie is very good -- good reviews, good word of mouth -- variable prices would allow the theater owners and studios to charge more. This would make consumers angry."

Before we go on, a little history: Until 1948, movie studios basically controlled most major theaters and were able to set ticket prices as they pleased. One result of this monopolistic practice is that so-called B-movies wouldn't cost moviegoers as much as higher-class A-movies.

Also, moviegoers would be charged different rates for attending shows at different times, at different theaters and for different seats.

"It was a very sophisticated pricing system," Orbach said.

In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down what's known as the Paramount Decision. Basically, it forced movie studios to get out of the theater-owning business, and thus attempted to introduce greater competition and flexibility to the industry.

In effect, however, it did away with variable pricing for different classes of movies and ushered in our current system of uniform pricing for virtually all first-run films, regardless of quality or popularity.

That system became the norm in 1972, when tickets for "The Godfather" were priced uniformly nationwide. The film went on to break box-office records and put to rest any concerns the industry may have had about charging flat rates for its output.

Or, in more practical terms, it meant I was stuck paying nearly $10 for "Poseidon" if I wanted to catch a popcorn-munching, big-budget action flick. (I ended up staying home and watching a DVD instead.)

So I ask again: Why not have a sliding scale for movie tickets? Why lose a potential "Poseidon" watcher to a DVD-rental store for the sake of a few extra bucks that most people clearly aren't willing to pay?

"Poseidon" has earned an estimated $47 million domestically since opening May 12, according to industry figures. It reportedly cost more than $160 million to make. It's expected to be director Wolfgang Petersen's lowest-grossing film in 15 years.

Orbach told me that a key trick to implementing a sliding scale is having the studios quickly acknowledge that they've got a turkey on their hands.

Most won't be willing to do this, not after spending millions on high-profile marketing campaigns.

Then there's the challenge of deciding -- immediately after the opening weekend, say -- how much to charge for a given movie's tickets over ensuing weeks.

"It would require a whole new department at studios just for analysis," said Macdowell at the National Association of Theater Owners. "Holy moly, that's hard to imagine."

A simpler alternative, said Orbach, would be to charge less for all weekday shows (rather than just matinees) or for times of the year when fewer people typically go to the movies.

Conversely, movie tickets would cost more on weekends or when more people traditionally hit theaters, such as around Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Christmas.

Orbach also said that while it may be impractical to expect movie studios and theater owners to slash prices for less-popular films, it's not unreasonable to imagine a system whereby blockbusters cost top dollar, but smaller films and documentaries cost less.

Tickets for kids' movies might also be set lower, with an understanding that studios would share in the theater owners' inevitable bonanza in popcorn, candy and soda sales during such shows.

"The theater owners and studios should be able to discuss such things in a sophisticated fashion," Orbach said. "But right now, because of the Paramount Decision, that's illegal."

And so here we are, stuck with a system where movies like "Poseidon" price themselves out of the market and thus end up as spectacular failures, rather than as modest successes thanks to cut-rate tickets.

"Our system of uniform pricing is totally stupid from an economic perspective," Orbach said.

On the flip side, I suppose we should be grateful that tickets for megahits like "Lord of the Rings" aren't soaring to $12, $15 or even $20 apiece, which could be the case under a variable-pricing plan (although ticket prices that high would only end up boosting sales of wide-screen TVs).

Bottom line: Why should going to the movies be any different from flying on an airplane? Some people pay more for a seat, some pay less; it all depends on how and when you buy. The important thing is that the plane is invariably full by the time it takes off.

If a particular movie can't fill a theater, price it so it will. There's no shortage of demand for moviegoing, merely a shortage of decent movies worth paying $10 to see.